I have a 45 gal bow front tank with 5 fish, 15 lbs of live rock and I recently added a sebae anemone to my tank. It has been there for two days and found a spot on the live rock. I have not fed it anything specifically except for the marine flakes that I feed my fish. This morning after I turned my lights on I noticed that it was shrunk up near the live rock and it has been there for the past hour. My tank has a 30w t8 marine glo actinic light. Can someone explain the problem?
Anemone shrinking
- Thread starter Erawbon
- Start date
organism
code monkey
I'm not an anemone expert by any means, but for starters your lighting seems um... less than adequate. There's a few other things that seem off like I'm pretty sure that's not enough live rock... How long have you had your tank? What are your parameters? How are you measuring your salinity?
arashsheikhpoor
New member
From what I heard, Anemones need an established tank and t5, led or MH lights. I'm using 4 54w t5's and my rose bubble tip is doing very well. I also had my tank for 4-5 months before I got it.
SwampyBill
New member
It's suggested to have about 1 lb of live rock per gallon of tank, & added all at the beginning of cycle to minimize continual die-off & water parameter fluctuations. As others have said, anemones need a mature system at least 6 months old to thrive. That's not sufficient lighting for an anemone or much of anything, other than fish only. If possible, I'd find another LFS to do business with...You've found the right site to get your questions answered; although it might get confusing hearing different opinions. Ask away, BEFORE making impulsive purchases. Good luck & welcome to Reef Central.
Last edited:
organism
code monkey
I think this would be a good time to stop going to that store since they're only interested in your money and not the health of what they're selling you, then start researching on here about live rock, lighting, and livestock before buying anything.
I'm pretty sure we've all been there at some point which is how these stores stay in business, don't stress it but use it as a learning experience
SwampyBill
New member
+1 on what organism said...
SwampyBill
New member
Make a thread in lighting, filtration & other equipment. There's a ton of options.
Here is the sub-forum. Up near the top, right side of the page are some links. If you click on forums, you can see most of the forums. We do have a classified section, but that will be invisible to you until you have been a member for 90 days and have 50 meaningful posts. You're already well on the way there.
There are lots of opinions on lighting, but either MH (metal-halide), LED, or T5-HO (T5-High Output) will be a solid choice. MH is the old (but certainly not outdated) standard, which can produce great results. The only issue there is that they produce quite a bit of heat. There are a variety of bulbs you can choose from to get different coloration.
T5-HO is high output fluorescent lighting. You would probably want to go with a 4-bulb unit for that size tank. You can pick several different bulb combinations to get the color that you want.
Both of the above are pretty much plug and play options. LED's are more experimental at this point. The technology that made them a viable high power choice really began to mature maybe 4-5 years ago. There are several good fixtures available today, but one needs to be careful. They are powerful enough that they can damage corals pretty easily. When one sets up an LED, they should start with it at a low intensity and slowly ramp it up over many weeks to months. Many of these fixtures can also set each color independently, so the user can modify the appearance on demand. This can also result in the user setting the light so that the corals aren't getting enough of the proper spectrum of light.
Key words to look into: Radium, Radion, ATI, Geissmann, Kessil, and you'll find quite a few more.
